Bugar: I Won’t Support Compulsory Military Service

Bratislava, January 4 (TASR) – Reintroducing compulsory military service isn’t a good proposal, junior coalition Most-Hid party head Bela Bugar told journalists on Friday in response to a recent statement by Defence Minister Peter Gajdos (SNS) that the ministry is considering a nationwide discussion on this matter.

Bugar added that the Slovak army has neither the capacities nor the infrastructure for such a move.

“Our situation regarding [the number of] soldiers [required] is being met at a level of 75 percent. If we agreed that military service was compulsory, we’d have to withdraw some soldiers from those 75 percent to train the new ones,” said Bugar, adding that this would eventually mean that the number of professional soldiers immediately ready to go into action if necessary would be even lower.

“I think that it isn’t a well-prepared measure, so we won’t support it,” said the head of Most-Hid, adding that he doesn’t expect any coalition conflict due to this issue.

[Compulsory military service in Slovakia was scrapped in 2005 – ed. note].